Why Virtual Worlds Play an Important Role in the Changing Arab World

While co-directing the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project with Joshua Fouts, I traveled to four continents in the physical world and interviewed people from 25 countries in the virtual world called Second Life. What we learned and experienced in the virtual world has since crossed over into the physical world in interesting ways.

The Psychological Impact of Virtual Worlds

Second Life has long been plagued by a misguided media narrative that latched onto its novel and cartoonish appearance while missing the much larger point: For the first time in history, geographically dispersed people are sharing a space limited only by their imaginations, and are visualizing together how the space is used and built upon.

Mosque communities have sprung up all over the virtual world as they have in the physical world, built from the ground up by various individuals and organizations. In Second Life, mosque projects and sites related to exploring Islam range greatly. Some seek to promote diversity by not requiring head scarves (avatars have no real skin to cover) and allowing digital shoes in virtual mosques, since they don’t track dirt into sacred space. Others insist on adherence to physical world standards as implemented by the various projects’ directors.

Experiences shared within virtual worlds, particularly user-created environments, are not perceived as trivial by those who partake in them. People can collaborate on developing the infrastructure of virtual environments, while social media platforms, though valuable for other reasons, have flat, standardized user interfaces.

Further, virtual experiences can help in overcoming shyness, language barriers, or other impediments to meaningful communication, creating the perfect medium for exploring cultural understanding.

The Impact of Virtual Protests

In 2008, when violence erupted in Gaza, a protest took place in Second Life. The space in which the protest took place was created by IslamOnline, an Egyptian and Qatari group with various web properties including a science section edited by a young Egyptian, Mohammed Yahia, who is also the creative leader of the group’s Virtual Hajj to Mecca in Second Life.

For the protest, IslamOnline created a virtual environment. At the perimeter were pictures, often bloody and smoky, clipped from the pages of newspapers around the world covering the conflict, particularly focused on the deaths of Palestinians. People (in the form of avatars) from all over the world held signs and engaged in discussions. Some protesters were passionate while others were calm. Some had first-hand knowledge of the violence in Gaza and others had no knowledge of the complex situation at all. This didn’t stop them from sharing opinions, just as people do in blog comments or around the dinner table.

I encountered an avatar waving a Palestinian flag who had set himself on fire and asked him why he’d chosen to make this form of protest.

“I’m heartbroken and furious with both sides that it had to come to this,” he said, adding that in a virtual world, he could express himself this way without hurting anyone, and that he felt that others had taken the time to listen to his view.

Yahia took the time to discuss the role of digital culture in real world dynamics.

“In the Arab world, we have seen that line [between in the virtual and physical] thin more than ever over the past few months,” Yahia told me via Twitter from Cairo. “Our digital identities have echoed louder than ever into the physical world, bringing about change and connecting us in ways that would not have been possible before. The relationships we have formed digitally have made some protesters feel like they've known each other for years, coming together and working together in some amazing displays of empathy.”

Conclusion

With hundreds of millions of people around the world, many of them young, increasingly exploring virtual worlds, the environments will continue to evolve. The new global culture and economy will transform, in part, through shared experiences in immersive spaces.

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